Blue Dreams
by Sidney Sussex
Summary: Sherlock can't get the pool out of his mind. Post-"The Great Game." Rated for angst and imagery. Prequel to "New Clothes, Old Scars."


_I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC._

_If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome._

_Special thanks to Feej and LeDragonQuiMangeDuPoisson for having read this over for me._

_**Prequel** to "New Clothes, Old Scars" at /s/6999204/1/._

* * *

><p>In the end, Sherlock throws away the blue scarf. Blue was his favourite colour once, but not anymore.<p>

There was blue that night. Filling his eyes, filling his ears – that _laugh_ – filling the air – chlorine, ozone – filling his _mind_. Most of the night blurs into obscurity for him behind the onslaught of blue. The glint of light against Moriarty's tinted hair, blue-black. The sickly glare of weak fluorescent lamps on his pale skin, dull blue. The shimmer of them against the barrel of the gun, electric blue. The reflection of pool halogens on the dark suit – "Westwood!" – flickering blue, like some Dickensian ghost of flame.

The haunting of his dreams, night in, night out, makes it a perfect metaphor.

Oh, he remembers other colours as well, when he allows himself to think about it lucidly – which is never. He remembers red doors, yellow wires, the oatmeal colour of John's jumper under the tangle of flashing lights and forced submission. He remembers laser pinpoints, piercing through the haze to mock him for his inability to hunt them down and destroy them. He knows that all of those colours were there, and then, of course, the sudden flare of violent orange, the rainbow shower of sparks – blow to the head – the blinding white of transcendent pain.

He knows that all of those colours were there, but in his dreams, there is only ever the blue.

His sleeping habits have changed since that night. He used to go without for days at a time while working on a case, then collapse in sublime victory at the end of it and drink in sleep, refilling his veins with life for Lestrade's next text. But Lestrade texts less often now, only when he is at the very end of his rope, and always cautiously. Sherlock can read the hesitance in his eyes whenever he does.

It isn't the lack of cases that has changed the way he sleeps, though. Instead of resting while he waits for something, _anything_ to happen, he paces the flat in a frenzy of impatience. John sleeps, and Sherlock tries to remember not to wake him, but every so often, the silence of the night and the blue-reflected glow of the streetlamps outside overwhelms him and he throws something against the wall, and for a split second, when the sound shatters against his eardrums, he can _breathe_ again. And then John wakes up after all, and comes downstairs, and Sherlock lets John shout at him and John lets Sherlock play his violin and they both understand why neither of them sleeps on those nights. John shouts to clear his mind of the pressing, choking feel of canvas and Kevlar and Semtex. Sherlock plays so that the golden notes will pierce through the haze of blue.

But Sherlock is not superhuman, no matter how hard he tries, and after nights upon nights of frenetic pacing, hands dancing across the air in front of him as if conducting an invisible orchestra, he inevitably succumbs to the buildup of adenosine and loses the battle against sleep.

Then the blue dreams come.

Not even John knows about the blue dreams. When Sherlock's body can no longer support him, when his vision blurs at the edges and slides out of focus, he stumbles into his room before giving in, because he worries that John might hear him if he slept in the living room. He doesn't know that when he dreams, his hands grip the pillow so hard there are minute tears in the fabric, and though even in the dream he is sure he is screaming, screaming as John goes down in blue flames again, those screams are silent.

He wakes up hoarse and unrested after an hour or two, and never tries to go back to sleep.

During the day, Sherlock is unchanged. He leaps up delightedly whenever his mobile buzzes; if the text is from Lestrade, he is out of the door in minutes, pausing only to don a scarf (not blue, the blue scarf stays on its hook these days, always, until he throws it away) and call to John, if John is home. If the text is from Mycroft, he devises ever more creative ways to say "piss off," and tries them all out on his brother, one at a time. If the text is from John, he informs his flatmate of their milk status; John has long since ceased to suggest that perhaps Sherlock, sitting on the couch or pacing a worn patch in the living room floor, might consider a visit to the shops himself.

He does experiments, or so John thinks. Certainly, he tries. But the experiments haven't been going well lately; Sherlock can only concentrate for so long before the silence takes him to a place he doesn't want to go. He's tried leaving the television on and it helps, to a point. One day, Sherlock is analyzing the properties of a mysterious white compound found at a crime scene; Lestrade has let him in on a case. He holds it, on a watch glass, over a Bunsen burner, waiting to see – will it burn? melt? smoke?

The flame is blue.

Sherlock stares, mesmerized, hypnotized.

He doesn't notice the powder burning away, doesn't notice the watch glass heating up in the clamps until his head _rings_ with the explosion, smoke and shattered glass, and then he notices. Oh, he notices then, and nausea overwhelms him as he sees it again and again in his head, _blue flame, smoke and shattered glass_.

He cleans the debris up before John gets home from work, patches up the cuts on his face, puts away the Bunsen burner and the clamps and the little box of powder that he will give to Mike at Bart's to look at for him, _I haven't the time, text me the results_, and makes tea. John has bought milk.

In his dreams that night, John burns, over and over again. He wakes up with crescents of blood in the palms of his hands, where his nails have been digging in all night, and he can barely draw breath for the terror and the guilt, _my fault, my fault_.

_I did this._

And John has no idea.

John is doing well. John is back at the clinic, more hours now that they get fewer cases. Save for the occasional nightmares (and John is used to those; he had them before), John's world is back to normal, or if it isn't, the imitation is flawless.

Sherlock is the one drawn tight as a bowstring, walking through the world each day on shards of drywall and plaster and the twisted (blue) metal of the changing room doors. He covers well; not as well as John, who surely can't be faking, but then again, there's no one else observant enough to see the signs. Sherlock brings home body parts from the morgue, puts them in the refrigerator and lets them rot. He speaks his mind, free-flow, when Lestrade calls him to assist, and insults to Anderson and insinuations to Donovan come as easily as ever. He watches them cringe and bluster under his words. He watches them dance to his tune, hates himself for being so talented a piper, and never shows it. He stands by the window in the flat, playing his violin, looking out across the nighttime lights of London (blue, the sky so midnight blue), hates himself for the thrill of power it gives him to truly _know_ the city inside and out, and never shows it. He paces when the world is tedious, bullet holes in the wallpaper at eye level (and John's eyes, too, are blue), hates himself for being able to be so crushingly _bored_, and never, never shows it.

He's not the only person in the world who can make others dance, or who feels the electric thrill of knowledge as power.

He's not the only person in the world who gets bored.

And whenever he remembers it, Sherlock's world turns blue-tinged at the edges and he has to steady himself, breathe deeply, to keep his thoughts unreadable.

It's not that Moriarty is still alive (of course he is). It wouldn't matter if he were dead, because although Moriarty is Sherlock's match, every step of the way, he is not what scares Sherlock, and the terror would not die with him.

It's not that Moriarty is like Sherlock.

It's that Sherlock is like Moriarty.

_I did this._

Every day, Sherlock hides the fear, hides the pain, hides the guilt. Every day, under layers of boredom and disdain, arrogance and evidence, empty milk cartons and John's favourite jacket on the floor covered in acid burns. Every day, because, to everyone else, Sherlock can pretend forever.

But it's there, the knowledge, always, underneath his skin, just for him.

_I did this._

So he goes on losing sleep, discarding experiments, dreaming in blue.

He goes on pretending.

"It's all fine."

_I did this._


End file.
